Solitary
by The Musical CC
Summary: Shad hadn't known how lonely he was until he lost his father...and until he met Ashei. Shad/Ashei. One-Shot


Shad was born a talkative person. So much he was often called 'Annoying', actually. His mother died when he was a child and his father followed shortly after his fifteenth birthday, but both of them were open, kind people who encouraged their son into his interest in books, and legends, and statues no one else knew of and were glad and proud to hear him ramble about it. He didn't remember much of his mother, just the smell of her perfume, the touch of her hair and her soft, small hands and arms embracing him. His father was another story, having been both his father and mother for more than ten years; when he died, Shad was destroyed.

Luckily for him, his father had good, loyal friends: Rusl, who lived on the peaceful forest of the south and Auru, a soon to retire soldier of Hyrule Castle Town. It was them who took the red-headed bookworm to the nearby Bar, after a month of self-reclusion in his father's library, mourning his loss, forgetting how to eat or sleep properly.

It happened after Rusl and Auru had drunk themselves senseless making toasts for his father, Shad being spared the ordeal by his age. Telma, the bartender, motherly and caring, approached him, as his red-faced companions yelped something that vaguely reminded of a song.

"P'haps you should go home, hon" she said, landing a broad hand sporting sparkly nail polish on his shoulder "There are phases of drunkenness you're just not ready to see yet"

"Will they be alright?" Shad asked, his face a handsome shade of green as he eyed them warily .Reading about alcoholic intoxication wasn't the same as seeing...and smelling it. He was nauseated.

"They'll have one heck of a headache tomorrow, but that's about it" she assured before piercing him with a worried, sincere stare that made him most uncomfortable. He knew what came next, and sure enough "Sorry 'bout your dad, hon. We all miss him"

Shad swallowed the lump that had formed around his throat at the mention of his father and nodded, muttering a barely audible 'Thank you' before getting to his feet and leaving the bar, head low, shoulders slightly hunched, like a scholar humilliated on his first date. Telma stared him until the door closed behind his back, feeling sorry for the kid. He was lonely, that much she could see without making much effort, and he was miserable, which was much worse. She couldn't blame Rusl and Auru for wanting to cheer him up with a night out, but it clearly wasn't what he needed and she could only pray to the Goddesses that he would find what he did need soon. On this though, she was interrupted by a soldier who warned her that Rusl looked like he was about to throw up, a warning that was, unfortunately, right.

The winter night was cold, colder than any other night he could remember. He raised his bespectacled eyes to the sky, and felt almost surprised that there were still stars on it. Somehow, in his reclusion, it had seemed as though the world had stopped the same day his father had…but it hadn't. Dawn after dawn still came, night after night still fell, the moon was barely a crooked smile, as if mocking him. His brow furrowed and he lowered his head, starting to walk, his shoulders slightly hunched. The market-place was empty, except for a few stray cats and it made him think about his own house, the house that was now only his, empty, save from the thousand books in the library…

Without so much as a thought- which was unusual, in his case- he turned towards the southern gate, postergating the moment when he'd have to step through the doorway and inside the solitary confinement of his house.

Shad had been a scholar from the moment he'd put down the first book he'd ever finished reading to the end. Always learning dead languages, translating old parchments; his time was always spent on reading books, then analyzing what he'd just read, then making his conclusions, then sharing them with his father and finally making a theory around his conclusions with the old man's help. He had learned at his younger age that the hunger for knowledge and the determination to search for it, no matter what, was something not many people in the world possessed…and that only he and the young princess -who was said to be as much of a book-worm as him- seemed to have it in Hyrule Castle Town, which was a problem whenever he felt the urge to burst into ramblings. The other kids where never unkind to him, on the contrary, but they didn't understand his interests. They couldn't fathom why he would rather sit down on the fountain and read a good book than play tag, or feign he was an errant knight. They liked him because he helped them whenever they needed help with their homework, and because he was always glad to provide them information about legends, old tales and cryptozoology, but he didn't seem to be a part of their group. So Shad had turned to his dear old dad for these needs, for the comprehension no one else seemed to be able to give.

His father was the closest thing to a friend he'd ever had. Not from lack of trying...simply, he was the only one he'd been able to understand and convey himself. He'd tried to do this with other kids, other people, but there was always a barrier, something, and it was as though trying to walk through a wall to join them, to stand as an equal qith them. Try as he might, he couldn't.

And now with him gone...

His steps came to a halt when he realized he had been walking for a long while already and he didn't have the slightest idea of where he was.

Panic washing over him, he looked around, trying to recognize something, anything that could tell him his location. The meadow around him was thick, the trees covering the stars that would have guided him otherwise. All sorts of noises surrounded him, not comforting ones. Shad was no expert, but most of his books said wild beasts were more likely to hunt at night, and even if he wasn't one of those built, buff guys, a hunter wouldn't turn down a snack like him, would it? To make matters worse, small white flakes had begun to fall from the sky in the first snow of the year. Again, he looked around frantically and froze as he saw something white among the darkness.

Sure, he was never one to believe in ghosts (Even if he did believe in sky-beings and stuff like that) but in the middle of the night, alone, cold and melancholic, it sure seemed like an option. He was so scared he couldn't move, despite the obvious fact that the white figure was getting closer by the minute.

Two big, round eyes, a huge mouth with huge, pearly teeth and a coat of white fur was all he could distinguish before fainting.

* * *

It was the sound of snow slipping off a branch that woke him.

Shad blinked and sat up, moaning softly. His back ached terribly, and something (Most likely a bump) on his head pulsated with every beat of his heart. What had happened? The world was blurrywithout his glasses and he patted around, finding them quickly. Relieved to find them in one piece, he slid them over his nose and proceeded to look around.

He was wrapped on furs. How had he gotten clean furs in the middle of the forest? Except he wasn't in the forest anymore, there were rocky walls around him and they were covered with frozen dampness. Was it a cave? How had he gotten there? Lost in his train of thought, he almost didn't notice the white figure sitting not far from him, but when he did, the memories flashed back into his brain and he all but leapt to his feet, moving a few steps away from it until his wobbly legs gave in and he fell on his back again. Dots danced before his eyes, but he distinctly saw the figure moving close to him and tried to move away.

Then, it spoke:

"Stay still, yeah?"

Was it his imagination or did the thing sound…feminine? Perhaps the detail would have struck him a bit more hadn't he been distracted by the fact that he now had a deep, ugly looking gash in his hand, where he'd fallen over a sharp rock. It was bleeding profusely and he had a moment to worry about potential infection before a shadow lunged over him and he raised his head, ending up face-to-face with the white thing, his breath caught in his chest, his eyes wide.

Then, the thing, raised both hands and _removed_ one of them with the other. Underneath what seemed more fur and elaboratedly ornamented metal, a hand emerged, and it removed the other mitton- for that is what they were, he realized upon closer inspection.

The palms were slightly clammy, but what surprised him the most was how calloused they were when they held his wounded hand, firmly but gingerly. They reminded him of Rusl's hands, so hardened by the sword traning that Shad had his doubts whether he'd bleed if caught by a thorn. One of them released him to lift the thing's face -mask, it was a mask, of course, why hadn't he thought of it?- revealing a heart-shaped face, a thin, pink mouth, a straight nose and a pair of ruby eyes that glowed among a thick curtain of lashes on the fire's light. She twisted her mouth in dissaproval, eyeing his wound.

"It's bleeding a lot but it doesn't look half bad from here" she said in a low, oddly accented voice. She released him and walked away, putting the mask on the ground, where its carved eyes looked at Shad as if warning him to stay where she was. Shad thought her hair was the same color as the sky had been the night before when he'd stared at it from Castle Town as she crouched near a sack on the other side of the cave and rummaged through it "Les'see..."

He was unaturally speechless. The fact that he'd thought he'd encountered a monster that turned out to be a girl -a good-looking one at that...in a brute-ish sort of way- and that she'd saved him from the snow seemingly for no reason at all stuck his thoughts like candy inside a clockwork mechanism. She didn't speak after that, not even as she walked back to him, a bottle of iridescent potion and some bandages on her hand, or as she poured the strongly scented liquid over his hand, that became numb and stopped bleeding almost immediately- or as she wrapped his hand on the thick woolen bandage and then guided him back to the pile of furs where he had been sleeping.

She stared at him, once she finished wrapping him up like a child with a fever and gave a sort of approving nod, picking up her helmet and placing it on top of her features again, hiding her strange eyes from his view. Then, without a word, went back to sit at the entrance of the cave, watching the snowfall in silence, back slouching the slightest. Shad,still trying to digest everything that was happening to him, stared at her, then back at his bandaged hand, then back at her. He had read some tribes of the mountains at the North of Hyrule wore armory that simulated the creatures of the mountain. Had he ran into a visitor form the north? Hadn't he been abnormally intmidated by her prescence, he would have asked, but the smell of the potion had made him sort of drowsy, adn the numbness in his hand was spreading through him like a sweet poison, and the furs were so warm and comfortable in the middle of the cold, and the pulsating in his head was slowly but surely fading...

Around three hours later he woke up to find her -thanfuly, maskless- setting a small cauldron over the fire, adding wood to keep it from going out, and he quickly got to his wobbly feet to help her as best as his bandaged hand allowed. She didn't thank him, he noticed, slightly annoyed, but she asked him if he was hungry and at the word, his stomach gave a loud growl that betrayed him. His face boiled against the cold air, the blush spreading to the tip of his ears. Hadn't his companion been wearing a mask, he would have seen her smile comprehensively as she put snow into the cauldron, watching it melt in her accustomed silence. Soon enough, it had become water, and so she began cutting up vegetables that Shad identified as endemic from the zone around Lake Hylia. Considering she was using a sword at least of the length of her own arm, he was surprised to see how easily she chopped them, without so much as a hesitation or accident. The pieces fell into the cauldron with a bubbling sound and started revolving near the bottom. The cave was soon filled with a delicious smell that made Shad's stomach growl even louder. His companion took off the mask and drank a small sip of the bubbling liquid, a pensive expression appearing on her face.

"...hey, have you ever eaten reekfish?" she asked suddenly. Shad shook his head "S'not precisely what you'd call a delicacy, yeah? But it's good for cold, suppossedly helps with respiratory illnesses and stuff…" she pondered for a second and then nodded to herself "You might want to cover your nose for a minute..." doing as he was told, Shad saw her extract a mid-sized red fish from among her belongings, cut its head and tail off, carefully extract the spine and put it into the cauldron. The mix sizzled slightly, the bubbles almost disappearing for a minute or two.

"You can sto that whenever you want, you know" his host suddenly said, staring at him with an eyebrow cocked, reminding Shad that he'd been staring at her, his hand still covering his nose, for a good while. A scrumptious smell welcomed his senses as he lowered his hand, feeling sillier by the minute. He caught the slightest hint of a smile on the girls face as she took another spoonful of the vegetable-fish-thingie soup, nodding approvingly at the taste.

"You're not much of a talker, are you?" she asked Shad, as she took out a couple of bowls that seemed to be made of some sort of animal bone.

"M-me?" Shad stuttered, taken aback. It had to be the first time someone thought that of him since he'd learned how to speak. Hell, people often had to beg him to shut up!

"Oh, so you _can_ talk" the girl continued, raising both eyebrows in mock shock.

"Of course I can!" Shad replied, frowning "I just…I wasn't sure of what one usually says in this kind of situation!"

"Hmmm…" the girl mumbled, somehow unimpressed "Well, for starters, what in Nayru's name were you doing alone and completely uncovered in the middle of a snowfall"

"I..." Shad began, realizing that saying he had begun walking and got lost in dreamland was going to sound incredibly stupid. Why _had _he done that, anyway? It wasn't like him to go long distances on foot, much less without putting any though on it "I was..."

"You were…" the girl flatly urged him, putting soup into the bowl and handing it to him.

"Uhhh…" he hesitated for a second and then shrugged. Aw, hell, he'd probably looked stupid enough fainting the night before, so why care now? "…you probably are going to laugh at me but I…I guess we could say I…did it without realizing" She gave him an incredulous look over her own bowl of soup, her chin slightly tipping to the left

"How come?"

"It's- uh- you see, I…I wanted to have a stroll and started walking and…I kept walking until I realized I was lost" he gave what he hoped was a natural, light chuckle but sounded feeble and forced and took off his glasses to wipe them as he always did when uncomfortable or nervous "Silly, right?"

"Downright stupid, in my opinion" she said bluntly, and sipped her soup. Shad cringed slightly. Clearly, tact was not one of this girl's best suits "Couldn't have gone that far in that case, though" she added pensively, ignoring his reaction, and then she looked at him again, when he'd regained calm "Where do you live?"

"On Hyrule Castle Town" Shad replied, putting his glasses back on "Um, of you don't mind me asking, where you headed there?"

"Yep" she replied, taking another sip of her soup.

"Really?" she nodded, still relishing her food, which made Shad remember he was hungry. He began eating too.

The soup had a strong flavor that made him cough at the first sip. Din, Nayru and Farore! It was a good taste, but it had the effect of making one feel as though the whole respiratory system had suddenly cleared. Once his cough receded, he took another sip, a long one, savoring. His host watched, seeming amused, but not surprised. She gladly helped both a second serving, and finally a third. They finished eating and Shad offered for cleaning the dishes, using the same method she had used for filling the cauldron with water: Snow.

"So, um..." he began, as she began keeping the now clean eating utensils "What business did you have in Castle Town? Family visit? Looking for a job? Tourism?"

"My father"

"Did he need something from Castle Town?"

"A doctor"

She'd said it as bluntly as most of her words to the moment had been, but Shad saw her eyes narrow the slightest. The thought fof himself in a similar situation in what seemed eons ago crossed his mind but he pushed it away quickly. This wasn't the time to feel sorry for himself.

"Oh...oh-sorry! I...is it very bad?"

"I don't know…" and, for the firt time since the conversation had started, she seemed unable to sya what was in her mind. Instead, she shook her head and turned to him "Do you know any doctors?"

"There's one just houses away from mine-"

'_Fat lot of help it was when my father..._'

"-I could…lead you there, if you want!" he hurriedly offered, if only to drown the voice in his head with his own "I mean, it's the least I can do. I would be out cold, quite literally, if it were not for you"

Her strange red eyes set on him for a seccond, as if studying him and then the corners of her mouth tilted upwards.

"Thanks. Anyway, what should I call you, lost boy?"

"I'm Shad-" he was cut by the sound of her laughter booming across the cave. For someone so silent, she sure laughed loudly "What's so funny?"

"Shad. Seriously? _Shad_" she replied, muffling her laughter with the back of her fist, as if it where a cough "That's your actual name, you're not pulling my leg?"

"That's my name and I don't see why-"

"Well of course you wouldn't, but-_Shad_!" she burst into another fit, clutching her stomach "T-that sounds like...the name of an old pompous dude!"

Scratch 'Tactless'. This girl was_ rude_. Too many questions crossed Shad's mind at this comment. Was his name really funny or was this girl missing a screw or two? Maybe it meant something he didn't know about where she came from? In that case, what kind of names did the Northern tribes use? And finally, in what way could a name be age exclusive?

And yet, he found himself laughing with her. Maybe after such a long time secluded, he just needed a reason to laugh and having a girl laugh at his name was good enough a reason.

"Well" he said in a slightly higher voice after letting her laugh at her will for one minute straight "This isn't fair, I should at least get a chance to make fun of your name too"

"Knock yourself out, yeah? The name's Ashei" she managed, regaining her breath.

He clinked, genuinely puzzled for a second. Wasn't Ashei a typically male name? Well at least in Hyrule Town it was, perhaps in the Northern lands it wasn't. Or perhaps it was and Ashei had been picked up on for it since she was a child. He suddenly really didn't feel like making fun of her.

"It's pretty" he lamely tried instead. Any trace of a smile left her face and she stared at him in incredulous surprise, neck and ears turning a furious tinge of pink.

"It's- it's not pretty!" she weakly protested, looking at a loss of how to react to a compliment. It was as though the thought of something related to her being pretty were a completely ridiculous notion. He wondered whether she knew her hair was the color of midnight or if she saw it just as 'Dark'.

"It is" Shad continued, savouring his momentary advantage, or perhaps her momentary loss of speech "It's actually a really pretty name. Do you know what it means?"

She shook her head, color rising up her face.

"It means 'Sword's Edge', that's what. Specifically, how it glimmers on the light..." he trailed off, because, speaking of glimmering, her eyes caught the fire's light in a fascinating way.

For the space of a heartbeat they were both silent and somehow Shad didn't feel in control anymore.

"You're just making that up" she breathed, finally. And with that, whatever it was that had made time tick slower, broke.

"Of course not!" Shad protested, indignated "I read about it, it was a very common name during the reign of Daphness the first!"

"Then, what does 'Shad' mean?" she countered, perhaps wishing to avert the focus from her "Or does it literally mean 'Granpa dude'?"

"No, it's...it's a type of whistle!" he self conciously admited. He'd never thought of the meaning as anythign but cool but it suddenly sounded terribly lame. He was sorry he'd brought the name meanings up.

"What, seriously?" Ashei incredulously cried, as if offended he'd dared to bring up her name when his was not much better "A whistle? Like...a horse call or something?"

"No-it's...look, there's a legend on how the ancestors of today's Hylians lived up in the sky eons ago..."

"Up in the sky?" she repeated eyebrows so high on her forehead that they dissapeared behind her fringe.

"Yes, and they were suppossed to...ride on birds of some sort. I'm not sure of the details but theymust have had a way of calling them, and there's where the whistle comes up...a few years ago, they found the word for the first time, carved on the walls of an ancient building near Faron Woods, and according to the inscriptions on another, near Lake Hylia...that was what they called the whistle, Shad...except they're not sure whether it was an actual whistle or just the name of the sound they used to call them..."

It took him a while to start himself up. It would have been fair to say she made him nervous and he wasn't sure why. Perhaps it was the fact that for the first time since he couldn't remember when, that his audience -not comformated by his father- actually listened to what he said. She didn't seem put-off by his speech, and even though he saw her resting her chin on her hand, back slouched as if bored, her eyes were heedfull.

"So, basically, your name comes from a legend" Ashei said after he'd finished. It was sort of a dry way to cut it, but it showed she had been listening, despite how much he'd spoken and how used he was to have people stop listening in the middle of the explanation.

"Yes" Shad nodded, a reminiscent smile crossing his features "My father chose that name for me because his life was devoted to studying the origins of the Hylian race..." he trailed off, realizing he'd gone and poked the wound he'd been tiptoeing around for a month.

"Cool" she said, and somehow, the simplicity and bluntness of this answer was soothing for him. People felt like they had to try harder when around him all the time, but Ashei seemed pretty unfazed by the fact that his vocabulary was far bigger than hers. Perhaps he found her soothing because she was sincere, and he made her nervous for the same reason?

"Does that mean you finally approve of my name?" he said self-sufficiently.

"Nope" she replied in the same tone and burst into another long laugh at his face "How about I call you Shadders instead? It sounds less pompous that way, yeah?"

"That sounds like the name of an old lady's fat pet cat!"

"Shadmeleon, then"

"Now who's making stuff up?"

It was trivial, silly talk, he admitted, but he didn't even feel it when it stretched for hours, morphing into other themes. He was surprised to find she was well-educated, at least as much as any girl born and bred in Castle Town. They were barely discussing some theories on the latest Hylian war when they realized how much the light outside the cave had changed...the seemingly ill-mannered Ashei got to her feet and declared it was time to get going.

* * *

"You're not much of an athlete, are you?" Ashei asked amusedly when, after just fifteen minutes of traveling through knee-high snow, and against a cutting wall of wind, Shad was completely out of breath.

"Well, I…I never had…much interest…in being one" he replied between gasps, trying to seem at least a bit dignified, which was hard considering he was a fur-covered man talking to a terrifying-looking monster costume among the wind that had begun to blow violently against their bodies around the tenth minute of travel "…but I daresay...stamina is…something you greatly…value…huh?"

"Shadley, where I come from, low stamina can kill you, yeah?" he made a face at her insistance on changing his name, but made no comment about it.

"Speaking…of which…I was wondering…"

"Where exactly that is?" she finished for him, turning to him, her mask covering her amused expression.

"Yes"

"My father's house is somewhere near the top of Snowpeak" she then replied, regaining her pace again "Up 'till now, I lived there with him" she made a pause "Mother died of childbirth"

Shad took a couple of steps, searching for something to say. But there was but one thing to say.

"I'm sorry"

She shrugged under the furs that covered her.

"Don't be. Didn't even know her, yeah?"

"Did you meet any of the tribes while up there?"

"The Fenrir Tribe was a couple of miles away, we visisted them very often" she tapped on her helmet with a mitttoned finger "They were the ones that gave my father the idea for this armor. They wear similar ones, yeah?"

"Oh, yeah, I read about that! What kind of creature are they emulating, though?"

"Some sort of...Snow Men they've seen prowling around for centuries. Haven't seen it myself, but father says he has. He made this" she pointed at her helmet again "Based on what he saw. Wish I'd seen him, though..." she glanced among the snowstorm, anxious "You think we're still far from Castle Town?"

Shad looked around them. The blur of wind and snow around them made it hard to see, but he recognized the terrain, however vaguely.

"Half an hour, at most" he informed.

"Good. I don't know about you, but I definitely don't wanna be here when the sun sets."

"You mean it could actually get worse than this?"

"Very"

As if on cue, the wind suddenly became a roaring beast that almost knocked Shad off his feet, covering his eyes from the stinging snowflakes, he began advancing.

Of course, it wasn't the weather they should have been worried about. Knowing as much as he did, Shad knew that wild beasts roamed at night on Hyrule Field, especially on winter, when hunt was scarce and they were sometimes even forced to enter Hyrule Castle Town. But he forgot. In all sincerity, it would only be fair to say he had his mind somewhere else, far from what he'd read, for the first time in his life.

In any case, as they approached the Southern Gate of Hyrule Field, and he recklessly let Ashei walk farther in front of him, perhaps a little proud on the fact that was finally going to advantage her on something, he barely had time to register the fact that he was hearing a low growl above the sound of the whooshing wind and turned to find a snow wolfos pouncing on him.

He fell back on the snow, his hands in front of his face, trying to push the beast back, a terrified cry leaving his lips. Despite the furs, his hands were naked, and on the paralyzing cold, the fangs of the wolfos felt as if they were red-hot as they cut his fingers and palms as he desperately grabbed its snout and tried to keep it away from his face and neck. He heard Ashei call for him and instinctively called back with something he couldn't quite place; 'Stay back' or something stupid like that. In the back of his mind, the only part of his brain that wasn't overwhelmed with fear reminded him wolfos rarely hunt in singles and the thought that he'd have to deal with a bunch of them sunk him deeper into panic. He was going to die, he was going to get killed. And then, a surprising thought –considering his situation- emerged, cleansing his mind in a way he wouldn't have thought possible: If he died in front of Ashei, he'd be too ashamed to ever be reborn.

He pushed, ignoring the pain from his ravaged hands and the droplets of blood slowly dripping on his face and glasses. He felt the weight of the beast lighten a little and seized his chance, pressing his thumb to the wolfos's eye.

The wolfos, retreated with a jump, giving out a pained howl and shaking its head furiously from side to got to his feet, running towards Ashei, who was already running to him, furiously strugling with something under her furs.

"Go, go, go!" he screamed, motioning for the gate. If only they could arrive to the bridge, then the guards could take care of the wolfos…that is, if they had the good luck to find a guard with actual guts, which was common, but not obligatory. In any case, they'd be safer inside the Town. Ashei didn't shift, still funbling with something he couldn't see, muttering curses under her breath, so as he passed next to her, he grabbed her arm and dragged her. He could hear the wolfos's howling, this time full of fury, getting closer by the second. Suddenly, his left foot slid into a well-concealed hole in the snow and he fel, a blinding shot of pain erasing all of his thoughts; he let out a strangled scream, clutching his thigh. His leg was paralyzed with ache.

Ashei was tugging him up from the furs that wrapped him, trying to get him to his feet, stealing anxious glances at the approaching wolfos. After a few unsuccsesful tries, she removed the mask and threw it to them, earning a furous bark and a yelp that told him she'd hit one.

"Shad! Get up!" she cried, finally catching his arm and giving him a mighty tug that freed him from his frozen prision. He fell forward with a grunt, teeth drinding.

"Can't! Leg...!" he breathed, crawling on the ground. She tried again, dragging him a little on the snow and he released himself, well aware of how dragging him would only be placing herself in danger "You go! Run!"

"Don't be-!" she reached out for him again, scowling.

"It's fine!" he yelled at her, frantically looking out for the approaching wolfos through the corner of his eyes "I'll be fine, just go already! Get a soldier! Go!"

He could hear the snow being padded on behind him and closed his eyes. He didn't want the last thing he'd ever seen to be Ashei turning her back and running for a help he wasn't going to need anyway.

_Shink_

The sound of a blade being unsheathed cut through the sound of the wind and he looked up just in time to see Ashei crossing the air above him, swinging the same blade she'd used to cut vegetables a while ago with the same domain and confidence. The wolfos barely jumped back in time to avoid the tip of the blade, hair on the back of its neck standing on end, teeth bare. The group was circling them, cutting the only escape route she had.

"What are you doing?!" he cried, struggling to at least get into kneeling position, eyes tearing up in pain.

"Stay down" she adviced, her voice calm and firm over the wind. From his position all he could see from her was her legs, firmly planted and spread, and the tight grasp of her hand on the sword's hilt, but based on how the wolfos was glaring ather, as if hypnotized, bony flancs heaving with its breath, he could guess she had her eyes set on it in silent battle. Finally, the beast charged forward with a howl and Ashei swung her sword almost gracefully. Blood splattered and the wolf landed clumsily, yelping, before dropping, lifeless, on the snow. The pack dispersed in a rush of howls, whimpers and growls in a matter of seconds, leaving Ashei and him once again alone in the middle of the snowstorm. They were safe. Ashei lunged forward and for a moment he was worried she'd try and follow them, but she was only retrieving her helmet, that had landed a few yards away and then rushing back to him, looking over her shoulder.

"Come on, they might come back!" she whispered, offering her hand. He took it, once again trying to get to his feet, but his good leg gave out under him, dropping him on the snow. She clicked her tongue impatiently and scooped him from bellow the armpit, wrapping his arm around her shoulders carefully, as her hand still held her sword "How's your leg?"

For all answer, he tried to put some weight on it and let out a moan. SHe must have gotten what he meant, becaus eshe started advancing carefully, supporting his weight on her own body.

After a few incredibly slow and tortuous steps, he finally found his voice.

"You should have left me there"

She didn't stop walking, eyes set before her. The stone sturcture of Hyrule Castle Town's gate became more apparent as they advanced. He could already hear the bustle inside, even over the wind.

"I said..."

"I heard, yeah? And you know what? Shut up. Here's something you should know about me, Shad, I never run away from danger, and I will never turn my back on someone that needs help. That's what my father trained me for all my life"

He gaped at her dazedly for a moment. Perhaps it was the adrenaline or perhaps it was the fact that she was calling him by his name at last, but he was feeling bold.

"Your name fits you more than you know, Ashei" he muttered, turning to admire the shine of her hair under the pale light of the snowy fied and thinking of her movements when she swung the sword, as if it where part of her own arm "You are a glimmer"

She huffed, eyeing him reproachfully.

"Did you hit your head on the fall, four-eyes?"

"No, I...sorry, this probably isn't the time"

But she stopped and he seized the chance to regain his breath. The road he'd walked without so much as a thought just the night before felt like a lifetime of walking on the way back.

"I couldn't leave you" Ashei finally said, softly, eyes downcast on the snow before them "Just thinking about leaving you made me feel lonely"

And he _knew _why, because that's how he'd felt the night before. She'd just learned what loneliness felt like because it was the first time she'd had any reference of what not being alone was like. He licked his lips, thinking of what to say next, and what came was the lat thing he wanted to say to anyone, much less her:

"My father's gone"

His voice cracked at the end of the sentence and she stared at him in alarm.

"Hey..."

"When he died...I'd never realized how lonely I was until I didn't even have him..."

"Well, now you have me"

She said it out of nowhere and he almost started, but she wasn't looking at him. She seemed mortified, embarrassed she'd said anything.

"And you have me" he said, because he _had_ to say something. She turned to him again, brow furrowed, but nodded.

"Then you're not alone, you idiot. Stop crying"

* * *

**C.C. (A) The Autor here.**

**Transferred this from my DA account. Ended up editing it quite a bit.**

**Reviews would be lovely!**


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